The Burgundian's tale

Our host gave a dry laugh. ‘None. Once Justin had seen the luxury and comfort of the Broderer home, there was no chance of him staying here. As a family, we were not well off. We had little money and our parents had allowed the house to go to wrack and ruin before they died. My father hoped that either Justin or myself would marry money. In fact, he pressed it on us as a duty. But he died a disappointed man. I have never fancied the married state, and Justin’s first wife, Alcina’s mother, brought no dowry worth mentioning with her. That was hardly surprising: no woman of means would have looked at us.’

‘Until Judith Broderer.’

‘Until, as you say, Judith began casting lures in Justin’s direction. Mind you, he wasn’t a bad-looking man and loneliness can play terrible havoc with a person’s judgement.’

‘Your niece thinks her stepmother may have married her father in order to protect her from his violent ways.’

Martin Threadgold raised sceptical eyebrows and looked down his nose. ‘A girl’s romantic notion, surely! But there! Women are strange creatures and capable of things that we men find it difficult to understand. Especially when the flux is on them each month.’

‘You’re certain that Mistress Broderer, as she then was, was fully aware of your brother’s violent nature?’

Martin blew his nose in his fingers, inspected them with interest, then wiped them on his sleeve.

‘Bound to have been,’ he said. ‘Edmund Broderer and my brother were … well, not exactly friends — no, never that — but drinking cronies. There’s an alehouse, the Fleur de Lys, where they both drank, and they would, on occasions, help each other home when they’d drunk too much.’ Martin sighed. ‘Justin always reproached himself that he hadn’t accompanied Edmund the night that Master Broderer fell into the river and drowned.’

Bertram’s discomfort was now impossible to ignore, so I got to my feet. He joined me with alacrity.

‘Thank you for your time, Master Threadgold,’ I said, holding out my hand.

He took it, saying, ‘I hope I’ve satisfied you as to my niece’s whereabouts on the evening of the unfortunate young man’s murder?’

I nodded to set his mind at rest, although only too aware that there were still questions that remained unanswered. Then I clapped Bertram on the back.

‘Right, my lad,’ I said. ‘Let’s go and see if we can talk to the Jolliffes.’

Ten

Luck remained with us in so far as Lydia Jolliffe was at home. The little maid who answered my knock informed us that the young and old master were abroad, but that the mistress was in her parlour at the back of the house. And it was to this first-floor chamber that Bertram and I were conducted in due course.

It was a light, airy room facing both south and east, with windows looking out over the river at the back and the gardens and houses that clustered around the Fleet Bridge to one side. Shutters had been flung open to let in the brightness of a spring afternoon that completely belied the dismal, rain-sodden start to the day. The May sun shone proudly from a soft blue sky, and rooks, like a handful of winter-black leaves, wheeled and cawed beyond the casement.

The woman who rose to meet us was a handsome, statuesque creature with high cheekbones and almond-shaped eyes of a deep, lustrous brown that gave her an almost exotic, foreign appearance. Her skin, by contrast, was extremely pale, but so skilfully had the white lead been applied that it needed a second glance to realize that its colour was due to artifice and not to nature. She was plainly but expensively gowned in green silk cut high to the throat, a modest touch that might have been more convincing had it not served to emphasize her magnificent breasts. Her hennin, draped with a white gauze veil, was one of the shorter kind which, at that time, had just begun to replace the ‘steeple’. She wore a dark-green leather girdle, tagged with silver and a jade cross on a silver chain, but no other ornament. The effect was striking and she knew it. It was easy to see why Fulk Quantrell could well have been attracted to this woman, in spite of his natural inclination towards men. (But even as the thought entered my head, I realized that, so far, I had no other proof of Jocelyn St Clair’s allegation.)

‘Mistress Jolliffe?’ I queried with a polite bow. A silly question, as it was extremely unlikely she could be anyone else.

She didn’t bother answering. Those remarkable eyes raked me from head to foot; then she let a long, lazy smile lift the corners of her delicately tinted lips.

‘So you’re the pedlar I’ve been hearing about from Judith St Clair.’ Her voice was languid. ‘Roger, isn’t it?’

‘I’m honoured, lady, that you’ve taken the trouble to remember my name.’ I smiled in what I hoped was a seductive manner (I, too, could play that sort of game) and drew Bertram forward. ‘This is Master Serifaber, the Duke of Gloucester’s man.’